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> Are you arguing that all labor laws, workplace safety laws, minimum wage laws, anti-compete laws and so on should be repealed? After all, they all get in the

> Are you arguing that all labor laws, workplace safety laws, minimum wage laws, anti-compete laws and so on should be repealed? After all, they all get in the way of two consenting parties deciding to work together. If not then it's merely a question of where the line is drawn and that's a murky issue. We should repeal every minimum wage law, yes. They were created a century ago with racist intentions, their effects are still racist and yet today they are defended as being "anti-racist." The actual minimum wage is and always has been $0, and more people get to (not) work for this wage in the minimum wage regime than would without it. I have yet to see a reason why a body of torts and collective bargaining would not be completely effective at resolving the real issues that need solutions in labor law and workplace safety. (I'm not sure what you mean by "anti-compete" laws in a labor relations context.) The existing regime where administrative bureaucracies are essentially intermediaries with perverse incentives to reduce exchange between two otherwise consenting parties seems like the worst possible world. To reframe your question, I think the solution is not "no laws," but laws that encourage more exchange but in a way that reduces power imbalances between consenting parties and give the parties a solid basis of legal (or equitable) recourse for undeniable wrongs that happen that were not anticipated by the contract.

kittiepryde 6y ago
1 person vs a large company is a power imbalance. The company doesn't even need you to survive. You need it.
- WalterBright 6y ago
  It follows from that that Microsoft/Google/Etc would be paying all their employees minimum wage.
  - marcinzm 6y ago
    You mean they’d do something like form a cartel with each other to keep wages down in unison?
    - WalterBright 6y ago
      I mean if they have all the power, employees will be forced to accept minimum wages.
    - heavyset_go 6y ago
      > form a cartel with each other to keep wages down in unison https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_Litigation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L...
    - manigandham 6y ago
      That's multiple companies and already illegal. The point is that if no single person in a non-union company had any power then they wouldn't be paid anywhere near what they are in these companies.
      - masonic 6y ago
        That's multiple companies and already illegal. And yet it happened, led by Steve Jobs.
- wonder_er 6y ago
  What do you think about the other primary claim of the comment? > We should repeal every minimum wage law, yes. They were created a century ago with racist intentions, their effects are still racist and yet today they are defended as being "anti-racist."
Spooky23 6y ago
So rather than sane regulation, you expect that everyone suing each other will result in a more sane outcome? And that employers will magically start allowing unions to re-emerge? That’s funny. I hope you aren’t one of the comedians impacted by this issue.
0xB31B1B 6y ago
Raising the minimum wage in Seattle was shown to help the local economy. The economy doesn't grow if people don't have money to spend. The marginal dollar made going to a worker making 15 dollars and hour or less is better for everyone than if that marginal dollar made goes to a capital owner of the company because the worker will have a higher utility from that marginal dollar and they will spend it in their local economy, which causes local economic growth. If the marginal dollar instead went to a capital owner of a large corporation or franchise owner, the dollar has left the local economy, and the economy has shrunk. Obviously there is a limit to this, you can't set the minimum wage at 200 dollars/hour, but the balance of evidence we have shows that increasing the miminum wage will increase the US GDP because those dollars go to things like hair cuts and groceries, not savings accounts. You need to spend money to grow.
- usaar333 6y ago
  How does this compare to UBI?
- ChrisLomont 6y ago
  It seems academic literature shows the Seattle min wage had the opposite effect of your claims. It hurt workers and drove up prices, as expected. Here’s two representative papers; you can find more using Google scholar. [1] https://www.nber.org/papers/w23532 https://www.nber.org/papers/w23532 [2] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1078087418787667 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/107808741878766...
  - Jweb_Guru 6y ago
    For your first paper, the same team published a study a year later that complicated their initial results: https://www.nber.org/papers/w25182 https://www.nber.org/papers/w25182. And "workers in low wage jobs earned less money" does not necessarily imply that workers are earning less money overall in any case. The second study is a survey of what employers say they were doing. It is not terribly surprising that they feel raising the minimum wage was bad. I'm not saying raising the minimum wage was a slam dunk in Seattle or anything, but if we want to have an actual evidence-based discussion, let's not cherrypick papers. It's also worth noting that employers simply "taking their business elsewhere" is much easier if the minimum wage increase is highly local as it was in Seattle, which isn't the proposal most people are talking about.
wonder_er 6y ago
It's interesting to me that none of the other comments at this time address the most critical part of your comment: > e should repeal every minimum wage law, yes. They were created a century ago with racist intentions, their effects are still racist and yet today they are defended as being "anti-racist." I would think someone should start with saying "those laws were not written by racists!" (and proving it) before they argue about the specific first/second order effects. If there is any way these laws were written by racists with racist intent, I can't imagine a more important entry point to the conversation/discussion.
- QuesnayJr 6y ago
  Shouldn't someone provide some evidence first that they were written by racists with racist intent?
withinboredom 6y ago
> We should repeal every minimum wage law, yes. They were created a century ago with racist intentions, their effects are still racist and yet today they are defended as being "anti-racist." I’d love to see evidence of this. However, I agree the minimum wage laws should be reduced or changed in some circumstances. Previously in our history, you could apprentice and earn almost nothing while you learned a trade. To me, this is much better than paying a school to earn a trade and interning for free. Also, in economies where there is no minimum wage, you usually see someone start somewhere on the cheap then “shop their skills around” and come back and say “I’m worth X so I’d like to make X or I’ll leave” and quickly they’re earning far more than minimum wage. When there’s a minimum wage, a business always knows they can find someone to fill it. There’s no value in keeping an employee and employees stop bartering for higher wages because they know how easily they can be replaced. I wish I had a paper or something to link to, so all I have is my own anecdotal evidence seen in my life. Also, I did this as a 16 year old kid and within a year, was making $10 an hour at Wendy’s.
- RandoHolmes 6y ago
  > Previously in our history, you could apprentice and earn almost nothing while you learned a trade. To me, this is much better than paying a school to earn a trade and interning for free. I think you should read up on guilds and how they operated. You would change your opinion very quickly.
  - withinboredom 6y ago
    I’ll do that!

kittiepryde 6y ago

1 person vs a large company is a power imbalance. The company doesn't even need you to survive. You need it.

WalterBright 6y ago
It follows from that that Microsoft/Google/Etc would be paying all their employees minimum wage.
- marcinzm 6y ago
  You mean they’d do something like form a cartel with each other to keep wages down in unison?
  - WalterBright 6y ago
    I mean if they have all the power, employees will be forced to accept minimum wages.
  - heavyset_go 6y ago
    > form a cartel with each other to keep wages down in unison https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_Litigation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L...
  - manigandham 6y ago
    That's multiple companies and already illegal. The point is that if no single person in a non-union company had any power then they wouldn't be paid anywhere near what they are in these companies.
    - masonic 6y ago
      That's multiple companies and already illegal. And yet it happened, led by Steve Jobs.
wonder_er 6y ago
What do you think about the other primary claim of the comment? > We should repeal every minimum wage law, yes. They were created a century ago with racist intentions, their effects are still racist and yet today they are defended as being "anti-racist."

Spooky23 6y ago

So rather than sane regulation, you expect that everyone suing each other will result in a more sane outcome? And that employers will magically start allowing unions to re-emerge? That’s funny. I hope you aren’t one of the comedians impacted by this issue.

0xB31B1B 6y ago

Raising the minimum wage in Seattle was shown to help the local economy. The economy doesn't grow if people don't have money to spend. The marginal dollar made going to a worker making 15 dollars and hour or less is better for everyone than if that marginal dollar made goes to a capital owner of the company because the worker will have a higher utility from that marginal dollar and they will spend it in their local economy, which causes local economic growth. If the marginal dollar instead went to a capital owner of a large corporation or franchise owner, the dollar has left the local economy, and the economy has shrunk. Obviously there is a limit to this, you can't set the minimum wage at 200 dollars/hour, but the balance of evidence we have shows that increasing the miminum wage will increase the US GDP because those dollars go to things like hair cuts and groceries, not savings accounts. You need to spend money to grow.

usaar333 6y ago
How does this compare to UBI?
ChrisLomont 6y ago
It seems academic literature shows the Seattle min wage had the opposite effect of your claims. It hurt workers and drove up prices, as expected. Here’s two representative papers; you can find more using Google scholar. [1] https://www.nber.org/papers/w23532 https://www.nber.org/papers/w23532 [2] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1078087418787667 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/107808741878766...
- Jweb_Guru 6y ago
  For your first paper, the same team published a study a year later that complicated their initial results: https://www.nber.org/papers/w25182 https://www.nber.org/papers/w25182. And "workers in low wage jobs earned less money" does not necessarily imply that workers are earning less money overall in any case. The second study is a survey of what employers say they were doing. It is not terribly surprising that they feel raising the minimum wage was bad. I'm not saying raising the minimum wage was a slam dunk in Seattle or anything, but if we want to have an actual evidence-based discussion, let's not cherrypick papers. It's also worth noting that employers simply "taking their business elsewhere" is much easier if the minimum wage increase is highly local as it was in Seattle, which isn't the proposal most people are talking about.

wonder_er 6y ago

It's interesting to me that none of the other comments at this time address the most critical part of your comment: > e should repeal every minimum wage law, yes. They were created a century ago with racist intentions, their effects are still racist and yet today they are defended as being "anti-racist." I would think someone should start with saying "those laws were not written by racists!" (and proving it) before they argue about the specific first/second order effects. If there is any way these laws were written by racists with racist intent, I can't imagine a more important entry point to the conversation/discussion.

QuesnayJr 6y ago
Shouldn't someone provide some evidence first that they were written by racists with racist intent?

withinboredom 6y ago

> We should repeal every minimum wage law, yes. They were created a century ago with racist intentions, their effects are still racist and yet today they are defended as being "anti-racist." I’d love to see evidence of this. However, I agree the minimum wage laws should be reduced or changed in some circumstances. Previously in our history, you could apprentice and earn almost nothing while you learned a trade. To me, this is much better than paying a school to earn a trade and interning for free. Also, in economies where there is no minimum wage, you usually see someone start somewhere on the cheap then “shop their skills around” and come back and say “I’m worth X so I’d like to make X or I’ll leave” and quickly they’re earning far more than minimum wage. When there’s a minimum wage, a business always knows they can find someone to fill it. There’s no value in keeping an employee and employees stop bartering for higher wages because they know how easily they can be replaced. I wish I had a paper or something to link to, so all I have is my own anecdotal evidence seen in my life. Also, I did this as a 16 year old kid and within a year, was making $10 an hour at Wendy’s.

RandoHolmes 6y ago
> Previously in our history, you could apprentice and earn almost nothing while you learned a trade. To me, this is much better than paying a school to earn a trade and interning for free. I think you should read up on guilds and how they operated. You would change your opinion very quickly.
- withinboredom 6y ago
  I’ll do that!